Ancient Aesthetics and Current Conflicts: Indian Rasa Theory and Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider (2014) (original) (raw)

2019, Shakespeare Survey (Cambridge UP)

On many levels, Hamlet is a play about acting. When considering styles of theatrical performance, our eponymous prince exhorts the players to perform their parts “gently,” with “temperance” and “smoothness,” “[holding] a mirror up to nature” (3.2). This acting philosophy has been theorized and realized in diverse ways on stage and screen in the Euro-centric West, but it stands in stark contrast to one of the foremost ancient aesthetic theories of India—that of rasa, which refers to the emotion an audience member experiences during a performance, be it drama, dance, poetry, or music. Rasa theory posits that all the acting in a performed narrative must focus on eliciting powerful emotion from the audience; thus, “robustious” acting is frequently found on stage and screen in India, as is often noted by critics of Bollywood. Furthermore, rasa theory dictates that every theatrical work should be governed by one primary rasa, out of a group of eight designated emotions, which may appear in the piece but must serve to support the dominant rasa. In 2014, Indian director Vishal Bhardwaj adapted Hamlet into the Hindi film Haider, transforming the “rotten” state of Denmark into the beleaguered, divided region of Kashmir. Though rasa theory has not been widely used to analyze cinema, scholars have noted that Indian films are most commonly dominated by the rasas of romance (sringara) and sorrow (karuna). Not surprisingly, Haider is governed by karuna, the rasa of sorrow, pity, and grief, from start to finish, an emotional landscape that is undergirded by the rasas of disgust, as represented by the extreme, grisly violence in the film, and romance, which, as in the case of Hamlet and Ophelia, increases the pathos of the narrative. In Haider, karuna is evoked vividly through acting and other aspects of mise-en-scène, particularly the cold, harsh, awe-inspiring terrain of Kashmir, which typically is used very differently in Hindi cinema, as a magnificent backdrop for romantic passion. It is this, along with other striking juxtapositional strategies, that highlight Bhardwaj’s message in Haider. Like Akira Kurosawa in his twentieth century Shakespeare adaptations, Bhardwaj makes a brave statement in Haider condemning the appalling corruption and gruesome violence perpetrated by official authorities in his own nation as well as militants from within and outside the country. Haider, as a great many didactic performative works in India, employs the pathetic rasa to impart its ethical meaning and to stir audiences to think, and perhaps act, differently.